Getting celebrities off driving charges is Nick Freeman's speciality and he's made a fortune out of doing it. But each time he puts a drink-driver back on the road does he not feel a little guilty? Steve Boggan meets him.
It is difficult to think of Nick Freeman as one of Britain's wealthiest lawyers as he poses with his favourite Bentley like a model at a motor show. He is sighing and caressing the bonnet of his Azure Mulliner convertible (two tonnes, £260,000 - Irish price €450,000, including VRT - when new) and describing the horns of a terrible automotive dilemma. "I never wanted to part with this because Bentley weren't making any more of them; but now they are, so I've got my name down for one and I'm having to sell this. It's such a shame."
The only reason Nick Freeman has to sell the Bentley is because the garage forming the left side of his £2 million (about €2.925 million) V-shaped pile can accommodate just three vehicles. And you get the feeling that he isn't the sort of chap to leave a fourth on the gravel drive, making the place look untidy.
Freeman is known among lawyers, footballers and their wives as Mr Loophole. He is the millionaire advocate to whom you run if you are facing a speeding or drink-drive charge when your £600,000 (just over €1,000,000) 1,001hp Bugatti Veyron means more to you than mere money.
But what if your child was killed by a drink-driver or a boy racer? Is Freeman a freedom fighter at a time when some speed cameras are bringing in tens of thousands of pounds a week in fines, or a man who manipulates the law in favour of the rich and famous?
In recent years Mr Loophole has been pilloried and applauded for preserving the licences of David Beckham, Sir Alex Ferguson, the golfer Colin Montgomerie, snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan and a host of other businessmen and soap stars accused of speeding or being drunk behind the wheel. Among the clients in his in-tray this month are the supermodel Caprice and Emma Parker Bowles, a relative of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Depending on who you believe, some clients have been happy to part with up to six-figure sums to ensure they retain their right to drive. It hardly seems fair; if you have enough money - like Manchester businessman Jon Bradshaw, four and a half times over the limit and acquitted last month thanks to Freeman - then it seems you can get off almost any charge.
Now, however, as Mr Loophole invites me to sit behind the wheel of his other Bentley, a Continental GT Mulliner (£112,750, according to Tuningnews.net, and with an Irish price of €262,000, according to Charles Hurst of Belfast), he tells me he wants the common driver to be able to exploit the kind of legal points he used to identify only for the rich and famous. He and colleagues at his Manchester law firm, Freeman and Co, have set up Freemankeepondriving.com, a service intended to allow you and me into his exclusive world for just £1 (about €1.50) a week.
"Basically, most drivers are respectable, law-abiding people who never come into contact with the police," he says. "So when they find themselves in difficulty with road traffic offences that could cost them their driving licence, they are unsure what to do. They go to their regular solicitor, who might specialise in conveyancing or commercial litigation, and they don't always get the best advice."
Under Freeman's scheme, drivers can get immediate advice and then representation - at, he insists, competitive rates - from a panel of lawyers trained by him in the art of the loophole.
We are now in the living room of his home near Knutsford, Cheshire, part of Manchester's commuting Golden Triangle, a place where rich lawyers rub shoulders with rich footballers. Freeman is 49, lean, square-jawed - a fitness fanatic - and imbued with the kind of enthusiasm that comes as standard with your boy racer made good.
Born in Nottingham, Freeman enjoyed a comfortable but not privileged upbringing. He completed his A-levels a year early, and took a year out in Paris, where he worked as a waiter and driver to save for his first car. His exam results were disappointing so he applied to study law at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham, which was regarded as having a decent law department.
He admits there were times when he considered giving up law, but colleagues pressed him to take part in an advocacy competition for articled clerks in Nottingham. It turned out he was excellent on his feet; he won the competition and was quickly snapped up to work as a prosecutor for Greater Manchester police. In 1983, a prominent firm of criminal lawyers in Manchester poached him and within six months he was a full partner.
"I was, and still am, a criminal lawyer, but gradually I began taking on more road traffic work and my side of the firm grew enormously," he recalls. "Month by month, it became clear that we were in the unhealthy position of having a practice within a practice. I was there 16 years and this caused problems. Eventually, at the age of 42, I took a gamble and decided to go it alone. Every single one of my clients came with me."
His big break came with the Ferguson case, followed by David Beckham's. He became the darling of some and the bête noire of others when he successfully defended Sir Alex against a charge of driving on the hard shoulder of a motorway by arguing that the Manchester United manager had had an upset stomach. The image of the nation's top football coach relieving himself at the roadside proved irresistible.
Later, appealing against Beckham's conviction for speeding, he argued that the England captain was trying to escape a group of chasing paparazzi. He never played the card, but he admits that echoes of the death of Princess Diana in Paris may have helped his cause.
So just what are these loopholes that he so profitably exploits? They are many and varied, he says, but generally rely on the incompetence of police officers during the legal process and his encyclopaedic knowledge of road traffic regulations and procedures.
"I recently defended a businessman who had crashed his car and was taken to hospital seriously injured," he says. "The law used to forbid the police from taking blood from an unconscious person, but now allows it on condition that consent is obtained from the person afterwards.
"In this case, the driver was surrounded by about seven surgeons trying to save his life, so the police surgeon, not wanting to get in the way, asked one of them to draw some blood from a tube coming out of the driver's arm. There was no doubt the driver was over the limit, but the relevant legislation says that the blood must be taken by someone who is not associated with the driver's care. In this case, it was taken by a surgeon directly involved, and so the man was acquitted."
Freeman is at pains to point out that he doesn't just get people off using loopholes - but admits that he does have two clients whom he has cleared on technicalities three times. How does he square that with his conscience? "Morally, I can't, but ethically, I can," he says. "I am a lawyer and my job is to give my clients the best defence I can. That is the job of every defence lawyer. I can't pick and choose who I defend based on my opinion; that would mean I was judging them, and that would be a dereliction of my duty.
"If I repeatedly identify shortcomings in police procedures, then perhaps we will end up with better standards in policing and then we will all be safer on the roads because people will not take chances. Until then, it is my job to identify inadequate policing and procedures.
"I want to make one thing clear, however. I do not condone drink-driving or irresponsible driving of any kind. And where I successfully defend clients I will often take them to one side and give them a polite ticking-off, tell them they have been very lucky and advise them to use that luck by not transgressing again."
It is time to leave with mixed impressions of Mr Loophole. On the one hand, he is a candid, charismatic and talented advocate. On the other, he has no problem with admitting there is moral ambiguity in what he does. In spite of his proximity to celebrity, Freeman somehow retains a common touch. He doesn't even laugh when we work out that each of the wheels he has had specially made for his Bentley Azure cost £700 (roughly €1,000) more than my old Ford Ka.